10/12/2004 -- Last month, Cisco Systems Inc. introduced several new Catalyst switching products for SMB and branch office customers. Cisco has long been troubled in the SMB space, largely because of its ties to IOS, which—a selling point in high-end environments—is viewed as difficult to use and configure for these customers.

Last week, Cisco’s troubles were shown in sharp relief when scrappy competitor Trapeze Networks introduced a new wireless LAN switch designed for branch offices. Trapeze’s new switch, the MXR-2, is a full-function WLAN controller that can support as many three attached access points.

Joel Conover, a principal analyst for enterprise infrastructure with consultancy Current Analysis, says that the “MXR-2 is an excellent move for Trapeze,” because it delivers managed, secure WLAN solutions for branch office customers. “This strategy plays particularly well into enterprise verticals, such as finance and retail, and should help Trapeze to better position against its competitors in those markets, and gives Trapeze the opportunity to differentiate itself against WLAN switch vendors across the entire enterprise space,” he says.

In addition to Cisco, Trapeze competes against Colubris Networks, which also offers a branch office access point with an integrated WLAN controller. Because Colubris’ solution is an integrated offering, Conover points out, it could be more appealing to branch office customers.

Cisco, for its part, comes up short on both counts: Its current branch office switches don’t have integrated WLAN support, nor does Cisco offer an all-in-one access point and switch for branch office customers. The rub, says Conover, is that Cisco has already built WLAN capabilities into IOS. “Cisco should ensure that its branch office routers clearly expose the WLAN capabilities that Cisco has been putting into IOS,” he says, suggesting that “Cisco should develop a specific WLAN support blade for its new 2800 and 3800 series routers which combined [power over Ethernet], WLAN switching, and a WLAN services engine offering into a single branch office platform.”

When Cisco announced its new line of SMB routers late last September, Conover highlighted one of the most intractable problems faced by the networking giant.

“For Cisco, every product launch is a compromise between the newest features and backwards compatibility,” he wrote. “Cisco has introduced new technology and faster performing routers, but Cisco also had to remain true to IOS, restricting the architectural changes that Cisco could make to the routers. Thus the 1800, 2800 and 3800 are still architecturally single-CPU devices built on a monolithic operating system.” -Stephen Swoyer